"It causeth driness of the brain, frenzie, dotage, and makes the body dry, lean, hard, and ugly to behold," as d Lemnius hath it."The temperature of the Brain is corrupted by it, the humors adust, the eyes made to sink into the head, choler increased, and the whole body inflamed:" and, as may be added out of Galen 3. de sanitate tuenda, Avicenna 3. 1. It overthrows the natural heat, it causeth crudities, hurts concoction," and what not? Not without good cause therefore Crato consil. 21. lib. 2. Hildesheim spicel. 2. de delir. & Mania, Jacchinus, Arculanus on Rhasis, Guianerius and Mercurialis, reckon up this over much waking, as a principal cause.

MEMB. III. SUBSEC. I.

с

Passions and perturbations of the minde, how they cause Melancholy.

S that Gymnosophist in Plutarch made answer to Alex

A ander, (demanding which spake best) Every one of his

fellows did speak better then the other: so may I say of these Ι causes; to him that shall require which is the greatest, every one is more grievous then other, and this of Passion the greatest of all. A most frequent and ordinary cause of Melancholy, fulmen perturbationum (Piccolomineus calls it) this thunder and lightening of perturbation, which causeth such violent and speedy alterations in this our Microcosme, and many times subverts the good estate and temperature of it. For as the Body works upon the minde, by his bad humors, troubling the Spirits, sending gross fumes into the Brain; and so per consequens disturbing the Soul, and all the faculties of it,

-Corpus onustum,

Hesternis vitiis animum quoq; prægravat una,"

with fear, sorrow, &c. which are ordinary symptomes of this Discase: so on the other side, the minde most effectually works upon the Body, producing by his passions and perturbations, miraculous alterations; as Melancholy, despair, cruel diseases, and sometimes death it self. Insomuch, that it is inost true which Plato saith in his Charmides: omnia corporis mala ab animá procedere; all the mischiefes of the body

h

Instit. ad vitam optimam cap. 26. cerebo siccitatem adfert, phrenesin et delirium, corpus aridum facit, squal dum, strigosum, humores adurit, temperamentum cerebr, corrumpit, maciem inducit: exsiccat corpus, bilem accendit, profundos reddit oculos, calorem augit. • Naturalem calorem dissipat, læsa concoctione cruditates facit. Attenuant juvenum vigilate corpora noctes. f Vita Alexan. Grad. 1. c. 11. b Perturbationes clavi sunt, quibus corpori an mus seu patibulo affigitur. Jamb. de mist.

* Hor.

proceed

k

n

proceed from the soul: and Democritus in i Plutarch urgeth, Damnatam iri animam à corpore, if the Body should in this behalf bring an action against the Soul, surely the Soul would be cast and convicted, that by her supine negligence had caused such inconveniences, having authority over the Body, and using it for an instrument, as a Smith doth his hammer (saith Cyprian), imputing al those vices and maladies to the Minde. Even so doth Philostratus, non coinquinatur corpus, misi consensuanima; the Body is not corrupted, but by the Soul. Lodovicus Vives will have such turbulent commotions. proceed from Ignorance, and Indiscretion". All Philosophers impute the miseries of the Body to the Soul, that should have governed it better, by command of reason, and hath not done it. The Stoicks are altogether of opinion (as Lipsius, and • Piccolomineus record) that a wise man should be anas, without all maner of passions and perturbations whatsoever, as Seneca reports of Cato, the 4 Greeks of Socrates, and Io: Aubanus of a nation in Africk, so free from passion, or rather so stupid, that if they be wounded with a sword, they will only look back. Lactantius 2. instit. will exclude "fear from a wise man :" others except all, some the greatest passions. But let them dispute how they will, set down in Thesi, give precepts to the contrary; we finde that of Lemnius true by common experience; "No mortal man is free from these perturbations: Or if he be so, sure he is either a god, or a block. They are born and bred with us, we have them from our parents by inheritance, A parentibus habemus malum hunc assem, saith" Pelezius, Nascitur unà nobiscum, aliturque, 'tis propagated from Adam, Cain was melancholy, as Austin hath it, and who is not? Good discipline, Education, Philosophy, Divinity (I cannot deny) may mitigate and restrain these passions in some few men at some times, but most part they domineer, and are so violent, that as a torrent, (torrens velut aggere rupto) bears down all before, and overflows his banks, sternit agros, sternit sata, they overwhelm Reason, Judgment, and pervert the temperature of the Body: Fertur equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas. Now such a man (saith 2 Austin)" that is so led, in a wise man's eye, is

Z.

i Lib. de sanitat. tuend. * Prolog. de virtute Christi; Quæ utitur corpore, 1 Vita Apollonij lib. 1. derantia, et ignorantia omnes animi motus.

ut faber malleo.

1. c. 32.

P Epist. 104.

percusserit eos, tan.um respiciunt.

Elianus.

Lib. de anim. ab inconsiDe Physiol. Stoic. • Grad. Lib. 1. cap. 6. si quis ense Terror in sap ente esse non debet.

De occult nat mir. 1. 1. c. 16. Nemo mortalium qui affectibus non ducatur: qui non movetur, aut saxum, aut Deus est.

affect. morborumque curat.

* Epist. 105.

Instit. 1. 2. de humanorum

* Granatensis. y Virg.

De civit. Dei. 1. 14. c. 9. qualis in oculis hominum qui inversis pedibus ambulat, talis in oculis sapientum, cui passiones dominantur.

no

no better then he that stands upon his head. It is doubted by some, Gravioresne morbi à perturbationibus, an ab humoribus, whether humors or perturbations cause the more grievous maladies. But we finde that of our Saviour, Mat. 26. 41. most true, "The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak," we cannot resist: And this of a Philo Judæus, "Perturbations often offend the body, and are most frequent causes of Melancholy, turning it out of the hinges of his health. Vives compares them to b Winds upon the Sea, some onley move as those great gales, but others turbulent quite overturn the ship. Those which are light, easie, and more seldom, to our thinking, do us little harm, and are therefore contemned of us: Yet if they be reiterated, "as the rain (saith Austin) doth a stone, so do these perturbations penetrate the minde: And (as one observes) "produce an habit of Melancholy at the last, which having gotten the mastery in our souls, may well be called diseases.

d

How these passions produce this effect, Agrippa hath handled at large, Occult. Philos. l. 11. c. 63. Cardan, l. 14. subtil. Lemnius, l. 1. c. 12. de occult. nat. mir. & lib. 1. cap. 16. Suarez, Met. disput. 18. sect. 1. art. 25. T. Bright, cap. 12. Of his Melancholy Treatise. Wright the Jesuite, in his Book of the Passions of the Minde, &c. Thus in brief, To our imagination cometh by the outward sense or memory, some object to be known (residing in the foremost part of the brain), which he misconceiving or amplifying presently communicates to the heart, the seat of all affections. The pure spirits forthwith flock from the Brain to the Heart, by certain secret channels, and signifie what good or bad object was presented; which immediately bends it self to prosecute, or avoid it; and withal, draweth with it other humors to help it: So in pleasure, concur great store of purer spirits; in sadness, much melancholy blood; in ire, choler. If the Imagination be very apprehensive, intent, and violent, it sends great store of spirits to, or from the heart, and makes a deeper impression, and greater tumult, as the humors in the body be likewise prepared, and the temperature it self ill or well disposed, the passions are longer and stronger: So that the first step and fountain of all our griev

f

Lib. de Decal. passiones maxime corpus offendunt & animam, & frequentissimæ causæ melancholia, dimoventes ab ingenio & sanitate pristin, 1. 3. de anima. Fræna & stimuli animi, velut in mari quædam auræ leves, quæ. dam placidæ, quædam turbulentæ: sic in corpore quædam affectiones excitant intum, quædam ita movent, ut de statu judicii depellant. Ut gutta laidem, sic paulatim hæ penetrant animum. d Usu valentes recte morbi imi vocantur. Imaginatio movet corpus, ad cujus motum excitantur huhores, et spiritus vitales, quibus alteratur. f Eccles. 13. 26. The heart al

is the countenance to good or evil, and distraction of the minde causeth dismperature of the body.

ance

ances in this kinde, is lesa Imaginatio, which mis-inform→ ing the Heart, causeth all these distemperatures, alteration and confusion of spirits and humors. By means of which, so disturbed, concoction is hindred, and the principal parts are much debilitated; as Dr. Navarra well declared, being consulted by Montanus about a melancholy Jew. The spirits so confounded, the nourishment must needs be abated, bad humors increased, crudities and thick spirits ingendred with melancholy blood. The other parts cannot perform their functions, having the spirits drawn from them by vehement passion, but fail in sense and motion; so we look upon a thing, and see it not; hear, and observe not; which otherwise would much affect us, had we been free. I may therefore conclude with 'Arnoldus, Maxima vis est phantasia, & huic uni ferè, non autem corporis intemperiei, omnis melancholia causa est ascribenda : Great is the force of Imagination, and much more ought the cause of melancholy to be ascribed to this alone, then to the distemperature of the body. Of which Imagination, because it hath so great a stroke in producing this malady, and is so powerful of it self, it will not be improper to my discourse, to make a brief Digression, and speak of the force of it, and how it causeth this alteration. Which maner of Digression, howsoever some dislike, as frivolous and impertinent, yet I am of * Beroaldus's opinion, "Such Digressions do mightily delight and refresh a weary Reader, they are like sawce to a bad stomack, and I do therefore most willingly use them.

SUBSECT. II.

Of the force of Imagination.

WHAT Imagination is, I have sufficiently declared in my

Digression of the Anatomy of the soul. I will onely now point at the wonderful effects and power of it; which, as it is eminent in all, so most especially it rageth in melancholy persons, in keeping the species of objects so long, mistaking, amplifying them by continual and strong meditation, until at length it produceth in some parties real effects, causeth this, and many other maladies. And although this Phantasie of ours

k

Spiritus & sanguis à læsa Imaginatione contaminantur, humores enim mutati actiones animi immutant, Piso. Montani, consil. 22. Hæ vero quomodo causent melancholiam, clarum; & quod concoctionem impediant, & membra principalia debilitent. i Breviar. 1. 1. cap. 18. * Solent hujus modi egressiones favorabiliter oblectare, & lectorem lassum jucunde refovere, stomachumque nauseantem, quodam quasi condimento reficere, & ego libenter Ab imaginatione oriuntur affectiones, quibus anima componi

excurro.

tur, aut turbata deturbatur, Jo. Sarisbur. Matolog. lib. 4. c. 19.

be

m

be a subordinate faculty to reason, and should be ruled by it' yet in many men, through inward or outward distemperatures, defect of Organs, which are apt, or otherwise contaminated, it is likewise unapt, or hindred, and hurt. This we see verified in sleepers, which by reason of humors, and concourse of vapours troubling the Phantasie, imagine many times absurd and prodigious things, and in such as are troubled with Incubus, or Witch-ridden (as we call it) if they lie on their backs, they suppose an old woman rides, and sits so hard upon them, that they are almost stifled for want of breath; when there is nothing offends, but a concourse of bad humors, which trouble the Phantasie. This is likewise evident in such as walk in the night in their sleep, and do strange feats: 'These vapours move the Phantasie, the Phantasie the Appetite, which moving the animal spirits causeth the body to walk up and down, as if they were awake. Fracast. l. 3. de intellect. refers all Extasies to this force of Imagination, such as lie whole days together in a trance: as that Priest whom Celsus speaks of, that could separate himself from his senses when he list, and lie like a dead man, void of life and sense. Cardan brags of himself, that he could do as much, and that when he list. Many times such men when they come to themselves, tell strange things of Heaven and Hell, what visions they have seen; as that S Owen in Matthew Paris, that went into St Patrick's Purgatory, and the Monk of Evesham in the same Author. Those common apparitions in Bede and Gregory, Saint Bridget's revelations, Wier. l. 3. de lamis c. 11. Cæsar Vanninus in his Dialogues, &c. reduceth, (as I have formerly said;) with all those tales of Witches progresses, dancing, riding, transformations, operations, &c. to the force of " Imagination, and the Devil's illusions. The like effects almost are to be seen in such as are awake: How many Chimæras, Anticks, Golden Mountains and Castles in the Air do they build unto themselves? I appeal to Painters, Mechanicians, Mathematicians. Some ascribe all vices to a false and corrupt Imagination, Anger, Revenge, Lust, Ambition, Covetousness, which prefers falshood before that which is right and good, deluding the Soul with false shews and suppositions. Bernardus Penottus will have heresie and superstition to proceed from this fountain; as he falsely imagineth, so he believeth; and as he conceiveth of it, so it must be, and it shall be, contra gentes, he will have it 1 Scalig. exercit. Qui quoties volebat, mortuo similis jacebat auferens se à sensibus, & quum pungeretur dolorem non sensit. Idem Nymannus orat. de Imaginat. • Verbis & unctionibus se consecrant dæmoni pessimæ mulieres qui iis ad opus suum utitur, & earum phantasiam regit, ducitque ad loca ab ipsis desiderata, corpora vero earum sine sensu permanent, quæ umbra cooperit diabolus, ut nulli sint conspicua, & post, umbra sublata, propriis corporibus eas restituit, 1. 3. c. 11. Wier. P Denario medico.

m

so.